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Growing up a good gentile girl in a small town outside of Pittsburgh, I had never heard of a Hamentashen, much less eaten one. I didn’t experience my first triangle-shaped, fruit-filled cookie until I was 28 years old -- and it was love at first bite!

This month on BobbyFlay.com, we're thinking about the holidays. Perhaps you're saying: "What are you talking about; those just ended!?" Wrong! The biggest festive feast days of the year may be in November and December, but there's loads to celebrate in March.

Hands down, no contest, macaroni and cheese is my favorite comfort food ever. Ever! Period, end of story. No other food puts a bigger smile on my face or lifts me up when I am feeling down. Macaroni and cheese has been a part of my life since I can remember. I always chose it (along with steak) as my special birthday meal and it pretty much sustained me through college. I can eat it in any form…stove top, baked, deep-fried, on a stick, even from a box… (ok, that part is a lie: I can’t eat macaroni and cheese that comes from a box).

Comfort food at my parents' house hits notes of Spain or Latin America on the regular. My sister and I were exposed to the food and customs of Spanish speaking countries our entires lives, thanks to a mom and dad who spent much of their careers teaching Spanish to high school students. Their passion for these cultures certainly rubbed off! For February's theme of comfort food, I decided to play with one of my dad's favorite Latin recipes and make it my own.

Comfort food, by definition, is food that provides a nostalgic or sentimental feeling...very often characterized by having a high carb level and being simple to prepare. While pancakes and waffles certainly would qualify, in my house, it is all about the Dutch Baby.

To me there are few things better than French toast, one of my top five comfort foods and, without a doubt, my Number 1 breakfast/brunch food. When I was thinking about recipes that I could create for this month’s comfort food theme on bobbyflay.com, I wondered how I could take my regular French toast recipe (which is anything but regular, I must admit -- using only yolks in the custard is the key!) and turn it on its ear. Or in this case, on its crust…

Pork chops with applesauce may be a classic American combo, but when I think of porky comfort food I immediately think pork chops with green beans and potatoes. The dish has been in my family for close to a century: my grandmother brought the recipe with her from Calabria at the turn of the last century and made it for my mother when she was a child. My mother, in turn, made it for me and my brother when we were growing up.

News Flash: there is a device called a slow cooker (often referred to, ala tissues and Kleenex, as a Crock Pot) that takes a mess of ingredients and turns them into dinner in just ten hours. Big deal, you may say; I can throw a whole bunch of stuff into my Dutch oven and have dinner in 4 hours. So yeah, it didn’t sound all that magical or newsworthy to me, either, and yet it seems that EVERYONE is in love with the thing! So in the name of research, and because of just how well the slow cooker seems to lend itself to our comfort food theme, I decided to take one for a test drive.

Chicken and rice is pure comfort food. I think just about every culture has a version of chicken and rice that they call their own. Consider the magnificent versions: paella, from Spain, arroz con pollo from Latin America, clay pot chicken and rice from China…the countries and versions are endless. New York City even has its very own version.

Here's what we knew about Mast Brothers before visiting their Brooklyn headquarters: their bean-to-bar chocolate tasted great, their packaging was the slickest in town, and they had beards.

Here's what we know after spending an afternoon watching them roast and winnow cocoa beans, grind them into chocolate, brew the nibs in a siphon to make chocolate tea, and be generally obsessed with all things cacao: these guys are changing the chocolate game -- and the revolution is delicious.

The history of chocolate dates back to 1900 BC and was originally prepared only as a drink: a bitter, frothy liquid, mixed with spices, wine and even corn puree, that was believed to be an aphrodisiac. Well, all I can say is that I am glad that I am living in the year 2015 AD. As lovely as that liquid concoction sounds (not!), I prefer my chocolate in bar form filled with caramel and nuts; as a flavoring for moist layer cakes, formed into chips and added to buttery brown sugar cookies, or melted and drizzled over ice cream. Just sayin’.

Whenever I am on the prowl for a cozy meal, I look no further than the tattered cookbooks I inherited from my grandmother. Leafing through the grease-stained pages adorned with annotations in her flowing script, I find an unlimited selection of hearty comfort foods. This year, though, having spent the month of January devoted to clean eating, it’s seems sacrilegious to dive headlong into a recipe whose first ingredients are ground veal and lard. It seems my quest for my favorite comfort food, meatloaf, would need to take a bit of detour.

Christine from The B-Team made this recipe for New Year's Day...but it fits perfectly into Comfort Food Month, too! (And any month, really. It's that good.)

According to a Southern tradition dating back hundreds of years, starting the New Year with black eyed peas brings good luck. Keeping that tasty ritual in mind, I think I have the perfect New Year’s Day brunch dish -- or any day comfort food brunch dish. (Yes, I know that is quite some statement but I really do believe I know what I am talking about!)

Starting a new year with resolutions to be healthier is great -- but the resolution is the easy part. Making healthy choices that we can realistically maintain for the entire year -- and, well, forever! -- is harder. I found something that can help: a mobile app that tests your knowledge about health, fitness and all things healthy living. With it, you can learn facts about health and fitness that will help bring about long-lasting results.

Okay, I admit kale chips seem like a somewhat dated concept. I’d say they “jumped the shark” right about the time Cheezy Chipotle Kale Chips landed on the shelves at Whole Foods at a whopping five bucks a bag. That being said, if you just take a step back, turn your oven to 275º, and give yourself a half hour, you’ll remember why these healthy and delicious snacks became a craze in the first place.

I am in love, some may even say obsessed, with a chair. Yes, a chair. However, you won’t find this particular chair at your local furniture store or online at Pottery Barn. This chair wasn’t designed for kicking back and relaxing – in fact, it’s quite the opposite. This chair was created to tone and strengthen almost every muscle in your body, and enhance posture and balance too!

Cookies for breakfast? Yes, please! Actually, cookies are typically a part of my breakfast every day (unless, of course, I am having a candy bar or a bag of gummy worms with my coffee instead). I am, without a doubt, the least healthy eater on the B-team…but January is all about clean eating on BobbyFlay.com, so I challenged myself to create a wholesome treat that would give an energy boost and satisfy my morning need for sweetness, without any artificial flavors, colors or preservatives. Oh, and I really wanted my co-workers and all of you to love it too.